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NBA WESTERN CONFERENCE FINALS: ROCKETS v WARRIORSMay 19, 2015Stephen CurryOAKLAND, CALIFORNIA: Game One Warriors – 110 Q. For all the talk coming in about you and Harden, it lived up to it where you were hot from the start and Harden started to get hot in the third quarter. What's that like when it's back and forth between you two? STEPH CURRY: It's entertaining basketball, but we're both supposed to help our team win and do what we can to impact the game. There's going to be stretches where he plays well and obviously he did that for his team in the third quarter, to really keep him close and keep him in it, and he made some crazy plays that we defended well, and we'll live with those shots. Hopefully we both have a big impact, and that's what we're supposed to do. Q.  Did you feel like you had to do a little bit more offensively, kind of pick the team up, kind of get them through this game to victory? STEPH CURRY: No, I just wanted to come out and be aggressive. You never know what that's going to mean, whether it's going to be a playmaker or taking and making shots. You've just got to come out and be aggressive, and there's a point during the first quarter where we obviously got down, and you kind of just want to pick the intensity up. I did my part, but the way other guys stepped up, specifically Shaun Livingston, the way he came in and impacted the game in the first half that provided a huge spark and was a huge reason we came back in that second quarter, he definitely did his thing tonight and it was a huge part of our win. That's the beauty of the Playoffs. Every night main guys are going to show up and hopefully play well, but you need pieces around you to do what they do and carry some of that load. Q. Your coach did say it was a feeling‑out process. Do you feel like you guys may have had first‑game jitters? STEPH CURRY: Not first‑game jitters, just you play six games against a team that has a certain style, that first 24 minutes in this series is going to be a little bit different, and it took us a while to kind of figure out the pace. Obviously it's different personnel out there, and so you kind of just‑‑ it is a feeling‑out process for sure, and once we got our rhythm and figured out how to get some stops, we turned the game in our favor. We expected it to be a battle. It wasn't going to be a blowout at all. We came in and were really fighting. Just proud of the way we stuck with it and became the aggressor in the second quarter. Q. Sometimes you guys have a bit of a pattern of falling behind early and then mounting these heroic comebacks. Why is it that sometimes you fall behind early and have to come back like that? STEPH CURRY: It's basketball. You're not always going to be on your A game to start games. You come out and be aggressive, but it always doesn't click, and you've got to be able to find different ways to win games. We've done that all season, through the regular season. We don't want to be in the hole, especially in the first half. That's not how we envision the game going. But we fight, and that's the one thing you can count on with this team, we're going to fight and get back in the games. Q. It seems like we've seen a lot more of you playing with both Shaun Livingston and Klay Thompson in the Playoffs. What do you think that trio, the three of you playing together, brings to this team? STEPH CURRY: We want to be versatile. That's huge, for us to be able to have different lines to throw out there and have a guy that can come in and distribute the ball and we can play off of him. He's a very unique player with the way that he can play the point guard position and the way that he does it. It's a huge bonus for us when he comes in and becomes aggressive and pushes the tempo and the pace and shots start to appear when he's out on the floor. We've gotten a good chemistry with that lineup in different parts of the game that we're out there. Q. Klay had the tough job of guarding James Harden for most of the night and hard to hit a lot of shots, but talk about the job Klay did defensively and talk about his personality of being calm, cool and collected can lead him to have a better shooting night later in the series? STEPH CURRY: It's the same way it was in the regular season against them. He loves that one‑on‑one challenge. Like I said, the possessions where James was getting some tough shots to go in, we were fine with the way he defended him. He's a body type, James had hit a couple step‑back shots over him over an extended and contested hand, and you bet on the fact the more tough shots he has to take and the harder it is to get into those spots that you hopefully wear him down over the course of a game. That's one thing we were encouraging. He's a great player that's going to make great players. You're defending him well and you're making him work. You don't want to give him easy baskets. That's the one thing you can count on the whole series is Klay is going to step up to that challenge, and he'll find his rhythm. You never worry about Klay having a shooting game like he did tonight because he'll bounce back quick and he never loses confidence. That's what you can expect from him. Q. You versus James has been a fun part of the whole season, regular season, Playoffs, and then having this series here, you guys know each other, you've got a relationship. Have you ever acknowledged that elephant in the room with him? Do you guys ever joke about it, talk about it, or do you just compete and leave all the noise to everybody else? STEPH CURRY: No, it hasn't happened yet and probably won't. When you get into a situation, obviously a playoff series but even during the regular season, those kind of match‑ups, there's no real time to kind of chat about the extracurriculars that are going on. Like I said, we're both trying to help our team win and do it our individual ways. It's a great competitive environment, and obviously we don't guard each other very much, but when you're out there you kind of get riled up with the back and forth that might happen, like tonight, or just the will to want to win the game even more because you know how great of a player he is and what it takes to beat a team like Houston with a guy like James. Q. Towards the end of the season when it was inevitable it was either you or James for MVP, did you find yourself kind of paying attention to what James was doing on some nights and when the voting came out were you kind of surprised because of how he was regarded that it wasn't closer? STEPH CURRY: I watch everybody in the league, and you know who's playing well and the stories that are going on during the course of the season. So I definitely was impressed with everything that he was doing, the numbers that he was putting up, the way he was helping his team win games, and obviously there are other guys in that kind of pool that were so consistent over the course of the season. I was just appreciative to be in that group and keep showing up every night and trying to do what I can to help my team win and hopefully playing well every night. I didn't know what to expect with the whole voting thing. I mean, you hear talk back and forth and I try to stay focused on what I can control, but obviously it was a huge honor to win the award and to know that there were so many people that voted for me. But it takes nothing away from James's season and LeBron's season, all those guys that had great seasons. We pushed each other every night and it was a fun ride, and obviously we're all focused on hopefully getting a ring. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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